Common hand washing questions
Question: Does washing your hands help to prevent viruses from spreading?
So washing your hands is one of the most effective ways that you can prevent the
transmission of viruses. It's really important even washing your hands with
soap and water and it sounds like a simple thing to do but actually lots of
people don't know how to do it well. So the advice is that you should be washing
your hands regularly. That means after you get off public transport,
when you get in from work, before you eat as well as your standard hygiene practices.
So wash your hands a little bit more often. And lots of good guidance has
come out around how you should wash your hands. So washing your hands with soap
and water for a minimum of 20 seconds when you do so.
Question: How long should you wash your hands for?
The recommended length of time washing your hands is 20 seconds and that may seem like a short
time but actually I think a lot of people don't necessarily do it for the
full amount of time. So there are some techniques to make sure that you are
washing your hands for the appropriate length, and that involves different songs
or different lyrics to kind of help you help you reach the time.
Question: What's a good tune to wash your hands to?
The double 'happy birthday' is a classic but actually I really like some of the
lyric generators online, that allows you to kind of create your own lyrics
and I think if it's personal to you then you're more likely to remember. (absolutely)
Question: How often and when should you wash your hands?
So there's multiple points throughout the day we recommend washing your hands.
So firstly before you commute to work and after your commute to work and
particularly if you're using public transport.
Also it's very hard not to touch different communal areas of the transport so washing your hands when you get into
work is important, before eating, and then also standard hygiene practices
so obviously after going to the toilet.
Question: Should you clean underneath your nails too?
Absolutely, to wash your hands is important for two reasons. Firstly, because your hand is slippery and it allows you to get off germs you might
not be able to see. Secondly, it's particularly important for coronavirus because
coronavirus is covered in a fatty envelope and actually soap and water
breaks that envelope apart and destroys the virus that way. So it's really
important to make sure that you're covering underneath your fingernails, top
and bottom of your palms, your thumbs, and your wrists when you wash your hands.
Question: Should jewellery be removed when washing hands?
You should remove any jewellery which you can remove for washing your hands.
Understandably germs, bits of soap and things could get stuck underneath the actual jewellery
so it's really important to do a thorough proper job and that you remove all
jewellery, bracelets, anything you can and that may get in the way of the soap and water.
Question: Is it better to dry hands with a disposable towel or dryer?
The key thing when drying your hands is that your hands remain clean,
you don't contaminate your hands again by drying them. So ideally a disposable paper towel
that you can then put into a bin is great. Hand dryers might be fine as long
as you don't touch anything around the dryers and perhaps if it comes on
automatically. So what you don't want to do is to recontaminate your hands during
the drying process.
Question: How well should you dry your hands after washing them?
So I think it's really important after you wash your hands, to dry them thoroughly as Rebecca said previously actually it's really
important you don't recontaminate your hands after you've washed them.
And there is a potential habit for people to do that, if they
haven't dried their hands properly, to do that on clothing or in something else.
So we'd recommend using disposable paper towels.
Make sure your hands I dried thoroughly so you're not tempted to dry them on something
which may be unclean.
Question: Should you use a disposable towel to turn off the tap?
So ideally, you don't want to recontaminate your hands after washing.
So blocking off the tap either with a paper towel in your hand, or with your elbow is ideally the best thing to do.
Question: Should you clean hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand gel?
So the ideal is to wash your hands with soap and water, as opposed to alcohol hand gel.
So soap and water is really good particularly with viruses because of the fatty content of it,
it breaks down the wall of the virus and kills the virus essentially.
However, using alcohol hand gel is much better than doing nothing. So if you're in a
situation where you don't have access to soap and water
we recommend using alcohol hand gel if it's available,
and then using soap and water when it's next available.
so as alcohol hand gel sells out really quickly there are lots and lots of different alternatives, and I think that can be a
bit confusing to people. It’s really important for people to use a minimum of
60% alcohol content gel.That's the one that's been best proved as a good
alternative to soap and water.
Question: What's the best way to apply alcohol-based hand gel?
So the way you wash your hands with alcohol hand gel, is the same mechanism
through which you wash your hands with soap and water and the same principle
applies, for 20 seconds rubbing your hands to make sure you get every area
including the nails, the wrists and also the back of the hands.
The only difference is we wouldn't recommend drying your hands after using alcohol hand gel as
part of the way it works is by drying naturally on your hands there's no need
to dry your hands but it's important not to rub them or
recontaminate them after you've used the alcohol hand gel.
Question: Will using alcohol-based hand gel often damage your skin?
So I think lots of people are suffering from dry hands at the moment, as a result of more frequent washing or more
frequent use of hand gel. I'm using a lot more moisturiser, I think it's important
that if you're using a moisturiser it's your own moisturiser, you're not sharing
with other people, and you know obviously that you'll be using new moisturisers
that you know are less likely to be contaminated.